A fundamental aspect of operating a safe and efficient rail system involves routine maintenance of the rail line itself. This maintenance can involve upkeep associated with the support structure for the rail line, such as replacing rail ties or ballast upkeep below the rail line. Alternatively, the maintenance can involve maintaining the rails themselves. The rails suffer wear and tear associated with use as well as exposure to harsh environmental conditions, such as heat, rain, snow and ice. Rails having a minimal amount of wear can usually be reground without adversely effecting the functional and safety characteristics of the rail. However, as the rails wear beyond a point in which they can be safely reground or the rails suffer irreparable damage, the worn or damaged rails must be replaced by new rails.
In general, the process of replacing worn or damaged rails involves removing the used rails from the railroad ties and placing the rails such that they lie adjacent the railway bed. Once the old rails have been removed, new rails can be placed over and attached to the railroad ties and the ends of the new rails are joined to form an operable rail line. The old rails can be picked up and transported to a mill for repair or recycling.
In order to reduce the time for removal of old track and installation of new track, the rails are fabricated in lengths of up to a quarter mile in length. By manufacturing rails of this length, the number of joining operations which must be performed at rail ends is significantly reduced. As the joining process can be one of the most time intensive portions of laying new track, reducing the amount of joining connections leads to a significant cost reduction in the form of reduced labor expenditures. While removing and installing rail of these lengths can result in significant cost savings, the use of such long rail requires the use of specialized equipment capable of handling the increased length and corresponding increased weight of the rails.
A variety of rail pick-up systems have been developed to work with long rails. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,520,497 is directed to rail supports for use with rail loading systems, while U.S. Pat. No. 5,630,365 is directed to locking rail supports for use with rail loading trains. In addition, some of the rail pick-up and transport systems known to those skilled in the art include booms or arms to assist the crews in picking up the worn rails. One example of such a boom is described in U.S. Application Publication No. US20030205162A1, which discloses a railway maintenance machine that includes a service vehicle having an articulating boom. Despite the presence of these long rail systems, there continues to be a need for a rail pickup system that further increases efficiency while improving upon operator safety.